Low tech SRS for learning Chinese characters

Just an anecdote as part of this discussion of SRS systems.

I used my own personal SRS system for learning the first 1000 characters in Chinese and then learned the rest from my reading. This was in 1968.

My personal SRS approach to Kanji consisted of taking the conventional squared paper used by Chinese and Japanese school children. Then I bought flash cards of the most common 1000 characters. I would pick out a batch to study every day. Once past the first 1000 I would only occasionally do this. Usually I would only write out new characters a few times. On the other hand I did have to write from time to time.

I started with the first one and wrote it out 6 or 7 times in the squares of the left hand column. Then I would write the sound or the meaning two or three columns to the right. Then I picked up the next character and did the same. Soon I would run into the first character and have to write it again. Then I would again rewrite it a few columns to the left. I kept on doing this until my batch was done. I started doing 10 a day and then got it up to 30. I would retire cards that I knew and mix back into the deck the cards that I did not know. I did it every day, or almost. In eight months I learned to read and write 4,000 characters.

After 3 months I was reading the newspaper, after 6 months I was reading novels, after 8 months I wrote an exam where I had to translate newspaper editorials from English to Chinese and vice versa.

After 40 years of not writing Chinese I can no longer write by hand, but I can do so using a word processor and I can read.

Comments

[igordesu]

wow,props to you on that, man. I'm only at about 2000, and it's taken me 5-6 months-ish :( Slow and steady wins the race I guess.

[Ana]

Uau, Steve,
I should say you're amazing. Six months to read a novel in Chinese?
I've been studying English at LingQ for one year and a half, more or less. I already knew a lot of English, and I studied very hard most of this time, but this is the first time I can read a book in bed comfortably.
You're unbeatable...

[Steve Kaufmann]

Ana.

When I did Chinese I was spending 5-8 hours or more a day. I was a man possessed. Now for my Russian I only study an hour or so a day, sometimes more if I have interesting things to listen to,and I am too lazy to write. It all depends on how much time you spend, and the more intensively you do it, the better.

[Valina eckley]

Steve,

I used a similar method to learn my first 1000 japanese characters, except i wrote out my own flash cards. After the first 1000, I picked up a lot more from just reading.

I also took the a couple of the 漢字能力 test just for the pure fun of it. Of course I passed...

If anybody has a Nintendo DS, there are some great kanji practice games you can buy, which I highly recommend.

I find that there are roughly only 800 that i read in my daily life... mostly my friends blogs, magazines and design books.

[Sarah]

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[Ana]

Steve,
I can't say exactly how many hours I spend in English, since I read and or write English the entire day (because of work), I listen to it while commuting (more or less an hour a day) and while cooking on the weekends (about 3-4 hours). Add to this two extra hours most nights (mostly doing and studying LingQs) and two or three pages in bed before sleeping.
As you see, I could easily say I'm kind of possessed too...

[igordesu]

Man, I wish I could devote 5-8 hours studying Japanese per day...oh wait, it's spring break this week. :) time to become board myself up in my room and read for a week.

[Miriam]

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[Matt]

I also used a similar method to learn kanji for japanese. I used an SRS called "Khatzumemo" and basically went through the first and third heisig book. I was able to write and understand the meaning of about 3000 characters( It took about 4 months in total). I learned the readings as they came up in the material I read at the time. I still don't think I know all of the readings though

[Colin]

Steve, thanks for addressing how you studied Chinese characters! I am curious to know what you did in that first three months, before you could read a newspaper. Did you just scan the newspaper looking for words and phrases you could read, or did you use some simpler materials before that?

[Steve Kaufmann]

I used the Yale-in-China series. I started with a book called Chinese dialogues, tapes and Wade Giles pinyin. Then I did a book called 20 Lectures in Chinese culture, simplified history with characters. From then on, and well after I could fight my way through newspapers and novels, I continued to look for "readers" which were collections of authentic texts, essays, political articles, short stories, etc. all of which had glossaries or word lists. I tried to avoid the dictionary as much as possible.

The online dictionary makes it possible to access a far greater range of material than before.

[Ray]

Hi there! This might be of help to your readers.
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[keiz]

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